Is the lack of progress thus far just brinksmanship and posturing necessary foreplay prior to some grand compromise?

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Which brings us to the society that bears his name, and which also sponsors Our Lady of Sorrows, which apparently thinks infield practice qualifies as foreplay.

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But the Cartland novels have their own artful form of foreplay, extended over the first 100 pages or so, with relief finally provided by the sanction of marriage.

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The change in emphasis from legislating and negotiating to spending and cutting taxes also pleases businessmen and investors, who complain that, even after so much foreplay, they still do not feel stimulated.

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Ms Sheehy, as if struggling to contain a thrashing whale, tries as far as she can to talk about golf and male bonding and inner peace, but in the last section she gives in completely with a romp through Viagra, testosterone patches, penile injections and vacuum pumps, as if all that has gone before is merely foreplay.

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